I blurted out, “I want children. And I don’t want to get divorced.” I wanted more of this too.
“You say that now.”
Reality began to drift in, and the liquid heat that had overtaken my core started to grow cold. Somehow, that intense fire of before made the chill feel like ice was seeping through my veins, especially as I whispered, “Until Abramovicz dies, he’s a threat looming over me.”
“He’s old. He’ll die soon. Our marriage will outlive him.”
I licked my sore lips. “I have a say in who’ll own me. I’m okay with that.”
His eyes flashed wide. “Own you? You’re not a fucking slave.” He moved his hand away. A moment ago, I’d have wanted to weep. Now, I was glad.
“I’m a possession,” I told him simply. A broodmare. “I’ve had more freedom than Inessa had but you’re still demanding children, aren’t you? Whether I want them or not, that’s still part of the agreement.”
His brow puckered once more, and I could tell my verbiage put him on edge because his jaw rocked to the side like he was mad.
I’d even go so far as to say that it distressed him.
Wondering if he’d argue, I had to admit to being disappointed when, with a final squeeze to my throat, he pulled away from me, his arms jerking back with him as he let mine drop down.
At first, I thought he was going to slap me for my impudence, and it was second nature to shield my face, but before I could embarrass myself, I realized he was looking at the slimline watch on his wrist. Not like the bulky Rolex my father wore, but a thin leather one that was heavily wrinkled with age.
Vintage.
Vacheron Constantin.
In my world, the old was appreciated far more than the new, so my interest was piqued enough for me to make a mental note to Google the brand.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” I snapped though, surprising myself. I’d been reared to accept I wasn’t important enough to deserve a man’s full attention, but that kiss… I’d felt like I was the center of his universe.
I wanted that feeling again.
And again.
But that way danger lied.
“Always,” he said simply, before his lips twisted. “But there’s no time like the present.”
Uneasy because of that non-smile, I swallowed. “For what?”
“To get our license.” He smirked when I gasped, relief hitting me like a blow to the solar plexus. His answer, while unexpected, was wonderful. More wonderful than those sensations he’d stirred to life in me. “You’re about to become an O’Donnelly, Camille. I hope you’re ready for what that means.”
Nine
Brennan
There were many laws we could break, a lot of bureaucratic hoops we could jump over, but sometimes, there were some rules you just had to follow.
Wealthy or not, when it came down to a marriage certificate, one had to show up at the city clerk’s office, fill in an application, shove ID at a bored civil servant, and pay a fee.
Nothing in this life, after all, was free.
The thought was rammed home to me as Camille eyed the office with interest as I spoke with Forrest on the phone.
She was used to being dismissed which, in truth, made her perfect for the role of wife. I’d barely spoken to her since I’d given her a thousand dollars to persuade—i.e pay off—her guard into disappearing for a few hours, and she hadn’t complained.
Not once.
Not that she had any right to.
She believed she was coercing me into marriage.
She didn’t know that I’d come to the decision myself a month or so ago.
She didn’t know that the decision had been brewing in my mind ever since Eoghan had told me his sister-in-law was back in the picture, and rumors had been stirring about Abramovicz making arrangements at their local church...
I had my fingers in every pie, especially with the Vasovs where Mariska's promise weighed on me like I was carrying the burden of the world on my shoulders.
Now that I’d clapped eyes on her, things had changed. My decision had morphed from a duty born of honor into that of desire ever since I’d seen that she was Mariska in the flesh, but... more.
Everything about her was sent to tempt me, and like the bad Catholic boy I was, I didn’t avoid temptation.
I dove into it.
Headfirst.
Da might want to spend an eternity in heaven, but I was more than okay with hell.
Hot pokers up my ass might be uncomfortable after a while, but shit, a kink was a kink.
Still, it was ingrained in me to let her think I was doing her a favor. Everything came at a cost, remember? Well, in this instance, I wanted her gratitude.
Being grateful always made a person far more accommodating, and I wasn’t sure how I wanted her to accommodate me just yet, but I’d figure it out soon enough.
By Christ if that kiss didn’t make me even more eager to get the ball rolling…
A quick Google search had told me what we needed to do, but because I didn’t carry a fucking printer around my neck, I had to wait to fill in the application at the clerk’s office. I was annoyed at my lack of efficiency in not having the application printed out so that we were good to go, while also relieved because it didn’t show my hand.
Having a marriage license application wasn’t something most people carried around on the regular now, was it?
“Are you fucking listening to me?”
Not really.
I didn’t bother getting mad at Forrest, even though my father would have beaten the shit out of anyone on his crew who spoke to him like that. But my crew wasn’t like his. Wasn’t like any of my brothers’, either. Mine were almost as close to me as my siblings were, which was really saying fucking something.
He’d been droning on and on at me for a while now, but my thoughts were firmly on the memory of her tit against my palm. Her lip between my teeth… She’d been so pliant. So submissive. Until she’d started fighting back.
Fuck, I didn’t need to be getting a boner in this dump.
“I’m listening,” I retorted, even though I thought it wiser to busy myself by looking around the paneled walls that were covered in cork bulletin boards, which were pinned with neon flyers advertising some shit or other, rather than study her ass. That mouth. Those fucking tits.
No.
Behave, Brennan.
Focus.
The clerk’s office was the most plebeian place I’d ever been, and I frequented the goddamn docks for a living. Everything in here was mediocre, middling, and mildewed. Including the staff who were buttoned up—not just their blouses, but their mouths. Pursed like assholes, each of the three women were middle-aged and matronly.
A woman in her forties could be more banging than a bitch in her twenties, but these ones really needed to wear some fucking lipstick and take a goddamn chill pill.
I knew what petty tyrants looked like—I’d been raised by one—and these three were it to a T. They were also enough to quench any and all of my arousal.
“You really sound like you’re listening,” Forrest groused, making me roll my eyes.
The faint scent of chamomile, sunblock, and horses disappeared, jolting my attention toward the woman who was no longer at my side, but who was staring at one of the hot pink pieces of paper. Her brow was puckered as she read the stark black text, and though I had the chance to read it as well, I was more interested in her than in the flyer. Something I regretted when she unpinned it, folded it, then shoved it in her pocket.
The move drew my gaze to her ass, which had me peering over the rest of her once more.
She was, without a doubt, hot.
I mean, I’d banged pole-dancers whose asses weren’t like Camille’s, but it was more than that. There was something about the set to her shoulders, the tilt of her chin. Call me crazy, but I could see royalty in her.
Maybe Vasov’s clan were fucking serfs—I didn’t know, did I?—but Camille wasn’t born to
tend to the earth.
She was born to sit on a throne. And I wasn’t talking the porcelain kind.
Did women like her even take shits? Did they puke or need to piss?
Biologically, they had to.
But Christ.
Such perfection...
It would be unnerving if the thought of destroying that wasn’t so enticing.
Her skin was like fresh cream. Her eyes like gemstones. Her hair like spun gold. She was a doll. Pure and simple. A rich man’s daughter who was reared to become a rich man’s wife.
But I saw more than the surface.
I thought about those bright red lips being plump and sore from tongue-fucking her mouth for hours.
I thought about those cheeks being marred with mascara streaks from the tears she shed as she gagged on my cock.
I thought about those gemstone orbs turning glassy as she screamed out in orgasm.
Perfection was boring.
Dolls were boring.
Camille was not boring.
Tedious people didn’t approach renowned Irish mobsters and attempt to force their hand into marriage. She was Bratva. She knew the rules of the game, but she’d broken them anyway.
If my mind wasn’t already set on this path, there was fuck all she could have said to convince me otherwise.
Honor was important to me because of my past, but few people in my line of work felt the same way. Most grew hardened over time, and while I had, knowing I was the reason Ma had been abducted…
Christ, there was no denying it—it made me a pussy around women.
I’d admit it to myself, but no fucker else.
My past made me want to cosset and protect them. If that cosseting and protection also came with a side of blowjobs and cream pies, then that was no one’s business but mine.
Plus the lady I was banging.
In this instance, for the foreseeable, it’d be Camille.
The second she’d spread her legs for me, at any rate.
And yeah, she’d spread them. It was a question of when, not if. I wasn’t about to become celibate. Saving her from Abramovicz didn’t come for free. But I didn’t think she’d bitch about having to pay the price—not after what went down between us in the stables.
Most women would be squeamish about being with the guy who’d slept with her mother too, but that was the cruel reality of our world.
Survival meant more than polite niceties and societal dictates.
Protection meant even more than that, as well. I respected her for shoving that aside.
I liked an intelligent woman.
“You’re seriously not listening to me right now, are you? For fuck’s sake. This timing is so beyond bad—”
“Do you want a running commentary or something? Jesus. I’m listening, Forrest, I told ya.” I tipped my cellphone against my shoulder as I grabbed Camille’s arm, moving her back to my side in the line, and pointing at the desk when a space opened up.
She didn’t dislodge my grip on her arm even though she stared down at it a touch vacantly. When her gaze drifted to mine, there was a gleam in her eye, one that I neither distrusted or trusted, just that I was aware was strange.
Inessa was a peculiar girl—I knew that from the random things Eoghan had pointed out about her. But who the fuck was I to judge?
I killed people for a living.
Dealt drugs.
Hit people up for protection money.
What about that was normal?
But Inessa had certain ways about her, was all I meant. It made sense that Camille would too.
“You can let go,” she said softly, and though I knew I could because we were next in line for the clerk, and she had half a brain cell so could register that herself, I didn’t want to.
A plan that was months in the making boiled down to the visit to this office.
Twelve weeks that were loaded down with stress and tension, concerns about a fucking cabal that had limitless power, and yet, she’d always been at the forefront of my mind.
Guilt—it wasn’t often I felt it.
Wasn’t often I acted on it.
In this instance, I did for one reason. A reason that, a year ago, would have been crazy to me.
I was ready.
Keeping her safe, protecting her from her father and his Sovietnik, didn’t have to involve marriage, but I wanted a family. I wanted a wife. I wanted—fuck—what my youngest brothers had.
How was it that the babies of the goddamn family were the ones who’d settled down first?
I’d never been averse to the idea of getting married, but the bitches Da had shoved at me grated on my last nerve, and with the hours I toiled, with the dedication required for my position as the family’s fixer, I knew Da, even though he’d never forgiven me for Ma, granted me a surprising amount of leeway.
Heirs were all he’d been talking about for the last couple of years, though, and Seamus, Declan’s kid, had taken some of the slack off us all, but that was momentary.
Da would be sniffing around Aidan first and me next, but I didn’t want what Eoghan had.
An arranged marriage to some Italian bitch whose virginity was being sold at St. Patrick’s altar in the name of peace with the Famiglia, wasn’t a sacrifice I was willing to make for the Points.
I wanted to pick my woman.
And I didn’t want her to be pure.
Purity might be Eoghan’s kink, but it sure as fuck wasn’t mine.
I didn’t want an angel in my bed.
I wanted filthy sex.
I wanted it every fucking day and every fucking night, and I needed a woman who could keep up. I knew about her past, and that Camille had been passed around by an MC might not be something my da would appreciate, but it meant she’d understand the needs of a man like me. Something that kiss confirmed, enough to make my dick twitch again at the mere memory of it.
When the time came and she was pregnant and I visited a mistress, I knew she’d get it too. She was born into the life. She’d do her duty, just like I’d do mine. But as self-sacrificing as I was, dedicating myself to fucking a woman until she had a bun in the oven wasn’t going to happen unless she’d take it any which way I wanted to give it to her… I had a feeling she was on board for that too.
The thought had me pursing my lips as Forrest yelled in my ear, “This is fucking pointless. I need you in Linwood, okay?”
My brow puckered as I said, “Why?”
“If you’d been listening, you’d know.”
I grunted, because he wasn’t wrong. “I’ll be there before night falls.”
“You’d better be. We got shit to do.”
I cut the call before he could bitch at me some more, then turned to Camille and said, “After this is arranged, I want a full blood work—”
Her lips twisted and she tugged at the boxy leather satchel she had swinging off her shoulder. The clasp unlatched and she dug through the meager contents until she found a piece of paper.
“Here.”
I stared down at it, saw she had a clean bill of health and asked, “How long have you been preparing for this?”
Unease had her features creasing. “I-I... the moment I got back to the city, I initiated the test.”
“Why?” I scowled at her. “Did you fuck a guy with an STD?”
Her cheeks blossomed with heat and I realized I’d spoken a little too loudly. The office had been relatively quiet, no noise except from the women working the counter who muttered the same boring shit over and over again, but at my words, silence fell over the small room.
I shot everyone a glare, un-fucking-caring if I pissed anyone off or was being rude.
I was an O’Donnelly.
We ruled this city.
I just didn’t appreciate the notion of being ruled by a fucking Bratva kid.
Like she read my mind, she simply stated, "No, but I wanted to make sure I was healthy. The second Father made murmurs about the arranged marriage, I sought solace in Mama’s diar
ies… When I read about you, I knew I wouldn't have much time. Then, last night, the situation deteriorated.” She tipped her chin up. "My stepmother says I take up too much space and I should have a household of my own."
Distaste had my lip curling. "Slutty Svetlana... Spread her legs for more sailors than an airport carrier can hold.”
She pulled a face. "What on earth he married her for, I'll never know. Mistress, yes, but wife?" She shuddered, her distaste for the woman evident. Her mention of mistresses pleased me though. As I thought, she knew how this world worked. "But even though she put my freedom on a countdown timer, it was only a matter of time. I've been trying to figure out how to get in touch with you without raising any red flags."
"The luck of the Irish blessed you today then, didn't it?" I said dryly.
"Yes."
The simplicity of her answer confirmed I'd been right to behave as I had—she was grateful and wouldn't take this situation for granted.
She'd put pressure on me, had showed all her cards, but I still had the upper hand. That was exactly how I liked it.
"You were more than lucky," I rumbled. "Vasov shouldn't let you anywhere near Forest Park. Not with trigger-happy Italians roaming their territory. You weren’t wrong when you said I could have been sent there to kill you. Just because that wasn’t my intention doesn’t mean it isn’t some other faction’s.”
Like she read my mind, she simply stated, “I’m a child of the Brotherhood. You think I don’t know when I’m being tailed?” She shrugged, moved something in her purse, then tipped it toward me to reveal a revolver. "I wasn't sure by who, but I came prepared."
“Apparently you’ve got better eyes than your guards," I told her, but I knew I'd have to watch her after we were wed. She might have come prepared but that satchel had been nowhere near her in the stables.
Guns were deadly, but they weren't when they were hanging on some coat rack ten feet away.
Sadness lit her eyes. “Can you blame me? After what went down in my own home?” She bit her lip. “I found her. She was…” Her eyes closed. “A broken doll. Covered in their—”
Filthy Sex: The Five Points’ Mob Collection: Four Page 8
